School of the Dead (2 page)

I fell into a doze, only to awaken with a start. Uncle Charlie had reached out and gripped my hand with his skinny fingers.

“Hey, Tony,” he whispered in that cloggy voice of his.

I looked around.

“Have I convinced you that ghosts are real?” he rasped.

I muttered. “Not . . . really.”

“They are,” he said. “Believe me.”

“I do,” I said for his sake, while letting him cling to my hand. He was trembling.

Loud thunder drew near. Rain tapped the side of the house, sounding like tiny feet running up and down the walls. The air in the room began to swirl in slow circles.

Uncle Charlie had been lying very still, when his grip on my hand tightened. “Tony, I'm going to die.”

Scared, having no idea what to do or say, I just mumbled, “Hope not.”

“How about coming with me to the other side?”

“What?”

He shifted his head slightly so he could look at me. For a second his eyes brightened. “Know what Albert Einstein said?”

I shook my head.

“‘The distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion.'”

“I don't get it.”

“Remember the number seven.”

“What about seven?”

“The most important number in the universe. Means there's a way you and I can stay together. When I go, I really want you to join me. It's not
that
hard to do. Just respect the past and protect the future.”

Sure he was becoming confused, all I said was, “If you say so.”

“Tony,” he went on, his voice weaker, “your seventh-grade year is going to be big.”

He gave my hand another squeeze, sighed deeply—sort of a raspy hiss—and said, “Here we go. Trust me.”

His small, bony hand continued to hold on, and his eyes remained open—as if watching me—but he died.

Outside, the storm erupted.

Being alone when Uncle Charlie died was ghastly. The burial service, on a hot and humid day, was almost as bad. It was held in a funeral parlor with fake wood–paneled walls and piped-in, gooey organ music that a snail would have found slow. Since the cooling system was busted, the air reeked with something that smelled like burnt sugar, meant to hide—I was sure—the stink of death. The quiet was so deep I kept hearing the prickly rustle of clothing, the shifting of feet, and the clearing of throats. It made my skin crawl. Then there was a long sermon preached by an old minister friend of Uncle Charlie's, something sappy about souls set free to wander.

The worst was seeing Uncle Charlie in an open casket, looking like a wax doll with rouged cheeks. The undertakers had closed his eyes, which had been so full of fun.

As far as I was concerned, I had lost my best friend.

Uncle Charlie was buried in a local cemetery, the muddle of crosses looking like a forest of crooked trees. When we reached the open grave, it even began to rain. Two shaggy-haired gravediggers stood off to one side, leaning on their spades. They were wearing red gloves.

Uncle Charlie was the first person I really knew who passed on. I understood nothing about death. Hadn't really thought about it, much less gotten it. All I knew was that when his casket was lowered into the grave, it felt as if a part of me was buried too.

Weeks went by. Despite all Uncle Charlie's jokey talk of ghosts, the supernatural, and
the other side
, I wasn't prepared for his death. Moreover, the summer was hot and humid and I had lost my friends. I felt abandoned. Sort of like wandering in a fog. With my folks still at their old jobs, I was alone tons of time. I spent hours walking my red slackline, which was hooked up in our backyard.

Mom did not approve. “It's vacation time. You should be out playing and doing things with kids, not staying home by yourself like a circus performer without an audience.”

But walking the line made me feel good. It was my way of keeping Uncle Charlie's memory alive.

One sticky night when my parents were not home, and it was so steamy I felt as if I were wearing five turtleneck wool sweaters, I snuck into Uncle Charlie's old room. I found some of his incense, lit it, played his strange music, and tried to say the mixed-up words he'd used when attempting to contact my friend's dead aunt. I wanted to get to the other side and talk to Uncle Charlie. All I heard were twilight crickets, creaking like a door that never fully opened.

How stupid could I be? I should have accepted what I had always known was true: Uncle Charlie's supernatural talk was just a joke.

At least, that was what I told myself.

But since I couldn't get Uncle Charlie out of my mind, my parents took me to a psychologist. Her report: “Your son, Anthony Gilbert, was deeply disturbed by his uncle Charlie's death. He's depressed.”

“What's wrong with thinking about Uncle Charlie?” I asked Dad. “And what's
depressed
mean?”

He said, “It's like being half dead.”

When I remained sad, not happy with anything, my parents kept reminding me we were about to move to San Francisco in the fall.

Dad kept saying, “New jobs for us. Cool new school for you.”

“That is,” Mom cautioned, “if you can get in. Hope there's space.”

Then I had to start back in my old school. Mid-September in the middle of packing for the move to San Francisco—we were told that the Penda School, the very place Uncle Charlie had wanted me to go, could enroll me as soon as I could get there. They would hold a place.

Delighted, my parents found an apartment near the school. That's why, October 5, a Sunday morning, the three of us were on the sidewalk, looking at the Penda School for the first time.

And that's when Uncle Charlie showed up again.

He looked exactly the way he had at those family gatherings: a small, old guy with a lean, pug-nosed face, dressed in a frayed checkered shirt, suspenders, torn jeans, and, yes, those tasseled loafers. A couple of differences: his eyes were bright, and he was smiling at me.

Let me make it clear: I did
not
believe in ghosts. I simply told myself that Uncle Charlie and I had spent so much time together, talked so much, done so many things, and had such fun, that I had never stopped thinking about him.

In other words, as far as I was concerned, I was not
seeing
Uncle Charlie. I was seeing my
memory
of him.

Think about memory. You can't slice a memory like a loaf of bread, but you can smell it, taste it, and see it, right? Even though memories can't talk to you, memories are real. It was his idea that had brought us to San Francisco. I was standing by the school he'd wanted me to attend. How could I
not
remember him?

Of course, my parents didn't see him. Uncle Charlie was
my
memory.

The main thing was, seeing him made me happy. I felt it would be great to have him around to help me in my new city, new home, and new school. What's more, I figured I'd need his help, because the Penda School was not like any school I had ever seen before.

The Penda School sat atop San Francisco's Pacific Heights, half a block wide and two stories high. It was built of dark red wood; massive stone steps led to double doors with thick glass I couldn't see through. There were multiple steep-pitched roofs, linked by a spiderweb of crests. There were gray slate shingles, bulky redbrick chimneys, plus tall windows bracketed by posts and moldings. It also had four towers, the tallest much higher than the others. Topping that tower was a weather vane.

Though the building appeared to be more than a hundred
years old, right next to it was a gigantic tree, higher than the big tower. The tree had to be even older than the school. The school reminded me of the haunted houses in those ghost movies I'd seen with Uncle Charlie. “That building,” I said to him, “is totally fake.”

Of course I didn't expect an answer, but I was happy when he just offered that sly smile of his.

Dad, however, assumed I was talking to him. “It's anything but fake,” he said. He opened the brochure the school had sent us and read:

           
The Penda School came into existence in 1897, when Mrs. Penda, a wealthy widow who owned redwood forests in Northern California, established the school soon after her only child, a boy, died. So great was her grief that shortly afterward she too passed away. All the same, she left her mansion and an endowment for a boys' and girls' school so that they might “Respect the past and protect the future.”

Mom, smiling, said, “So make sure, Tony, in school, to show a healthy respect for history, and protect the future.”

Remembering that “Respect the past and protect the future” was something Uncle Charlie had told me, I asked
him, “Protect
who
from
what
?”

All Mom said was, “Just a motto. I wouldn't worry about it.”

I took the brochure from Dad and
flipped through it. It was stuffed with pictures of laughing, hugging students. “That's so fake,” I said.

“Do you know how often you say
fake
?” said Mom.

“Do you know how many things
are
fake?”

Pointing to the school's highest tower, I said to Uncle Charlie, “Do they have classes up there?”

“Astronomy,” suggested Mom.

“Religion,” offered Dad. “Because I'll bet that weather vane on top is Gabriel.”

I said, “Who's Gabriel?”

“A big-time angel. See his trumpet? His job is to announce the end of the world with a toot of his horn. When he does, all the dead arise.”

There's a lot of death attached to this school
, I thought as I stared at the building and said, “It's . . . weird.”

“Nowadays,” said Dad, “
weird
means ‘strange.' Know what the word used to mean?”

“No.”

“Fate.”

“Whose?” I asked Uncle Charlie.

Dad said, “Yours, I guess
.
” And he laughed.

So did Uncle Charlie, silently.

“Just remember,” said Mom, “Uncle Charlie left money so you could come to this school. You heard him say how much he loved it when he went.”

To which Dad added, “Just don't try to live up to Uncle Charlie's expectations. Accept the fact that he's gone and you're on your own. But—no harm in enjoying the fact that he went here.”

“Think the school is still good?” I asked Uncle Charlie.

Mom said, “I guess that's why he wanted you to come here.”

Dad added, “We were lucky they found a place for you.”

“How'd that happen?” I asked Uncle Charlie.

The old guy gave his biggest grin yet, but it was Mom who said, “I gather someone suddenly left. And maybe Uncle Charlie put in a word.”

“Does the school know I'm related?” I asked Uncle Charlie.

Dad shook his head. “We didn't tell them, and with your different last names, they won't know. You're here on your own.”

Mom, not thrilled by how much I still went on about Uncle Charlie, said, “Let's get some frozen yogurt.”

Dad used his phone to tap in a search. “Yogurt place right down the hill.”

I said, “Everything is downhill in San Francisco.”

As we started off, Mom put an arm around my shoulder. I shrugged her off and looked back. Uncle Charlie had disappeared, but I saw the face of a girl—at least I thought it was a girl—staring out at me from one of the school's first-floor windows. “Do they have school on weekends?” I asked.

“Doubt it,” said Dad.

I said, “There's a girl looking out.”

“Really?” said Mom, turning. By the time she looked, the girl's face was gone.

“Maybe not,” I had to admit. Even so, I looked at the school again. Not seeing anyone, I gazed higher, to the window in the tallest tower. Another face was there, a boy with blond curly hair. He was also staring at me. At least he was until he too vanished.

I thought,
Weird.

Which naturally made me think about what Dad had just said about the word
weird
: that it didn't just mean “strange” but also “fate.”

Turned out he had it right—both ways.

My first day at Penda—Monday the sixth—was to begin at eight thirty. Before my alarm buzzed at seven thirty, I was yanked from restless sleep by a sharp crack of lightning.
Bolting up in bed, I listened as thunder and rain lashed against our apartment building. It reminded me of the night Uncle Charlie died.

I flipped my pillow to the cool side, drew up my blanket, and lay back. When I had asked Uncle Charlie why he wanted me to go to the Penda School, all he'd said was, “It's . . . full of life.” So, not knowing much about the Penda School, I was uneasy.

A private school: Would the kids be snobby rich? Was it going to be hard? Would I have to play a sport? Would I have any friends? I suppose my worries explain why I hadn't unpacked my junk yet—as if I might go back east.

Like a good memory, Uncle Charlie was standing at the foot of my bed, eyes full of fun.

I said, “You wanted me to go here, so it's going to be okay, right?”

He offered a smile and faded away.

Reassured, I got up. Still, what I really wanted to do was walk my slackline. I had strung it up in my room from my closet door to the bureau. But I knew I had to go to school.

Over my desk chair Mom had laid out my new clothes: ironed tan pants and a white collared shirt, along with one of Dad's red-and-blue-striped ties. The Penda School had a dress code.

Once dressed, I joined my parents for breakfast in the small kitchen. Nodding toward the storm, I asked, “How am I going to get to school?”

“Usually, you'll walk,” said Mom. “But we'll take a cab today. Showing up soaked on your first day would look odd.”

I said, “Uncle Charlie once told me he didn't get even. Just odder.”